Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Apr 16: National Conference President and the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday rubbished the former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) AS Dulat’s claim that he and his son, the incumbent chief minister Omar Abdullah, had supported the abrogation of Article 370, which ensured special status to J&K, in 2019.
Calling the claim “completely wrong,” Mr Abdullah said he was in jail when the Centre revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.
The explosive claims of Mr Dulat has sparked a huge political row in Jammu and Kashmir. In the book “The Chief Minister And The Spy,” Mr Dulat claimed that Farooq Abdullah had privately expressed support for the scrapping of Article 370 despite his public opposition to it. Mr Abdullah and his party have issued vehement denials — the National Conference patriarch saying it was a “cheap trick” of Mr Dulat to sell his book, which is expected to be released on April 18.
Responding to Dulat’s new book, Abdullah expressed disappointment and said the book was filled with inaccuracies, especially in how Dulat portrayed him. “Dulat sahab’s book is full of so many inaccuracies, I can’t even begin to describe them. It’s unfortunate — if he really considers me a friend, then he wouldn’t have written such things. In the book, he claims I asked him whom to make CM when I formed the government in 1996 — that’s completely false,” Abdullah said.
In the book, Dulat claims that Abdullah privately supported the Centre’s move to scrap Article 370, despite publicly opposing it. When Article 370 of the Constitution was abrogated in August 2019 by the Narendra Modi-led central government, Abdullah has repeatedly voiced his opposition and consistently made his stand clear through public speeches and media interactions.
The claim made in Dulat’s new book has also drawn sharp criticism—especially from within the National Conference. Dulat, a close associate of Abdullah, faced a fierce backlash from several NC leaders. National Conference spokesperson and MLA Tanvir Sadiq dismissed the book’s claims as “baseless and fictional,” saying there were far more pressing issues facing Jammu and Kashmir than dwelling on such misleading narratives. Abdullah’s daughter, Safia Abdullah Khan, also responded strongly, saying she had never trusted Dulat and described him as someone whose “loyalty was only to himself.”
Some opposition leaders, however, came out in support of Dulat’s version. Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference chief Sajad Lone said the claims made in the book were “very credible,” pointing out that Dulat had been “the closest ally” of Abdullah. Iltija Mufti, daughter of PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti, also weighed in, saying the revelations showed that Abdullah “chose to stay in Kashmir instead of Parliament” in a way that supported the “betrayal” of Jammu and Kashmir.
Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah had been the prime movers for the formation of Gupkaar alliance to seek the restoration of Article 370 and statehood for Jammu and Kashmir. To this end, Abdullah Senior had joined hands with all opposition parties in Jammu and Kashmir, including his political arch-rival, Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
In his book, however, Mr Dulat quoted Mr Abdullah as telling him, “We would have helped (pass the proposal). Why were we not taken into confidence?” The claim was backed by some suggestive passages. Days before the scrapping of Article 370, The Abdullahs had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. “What transpired…nobody will ever know,” Mr Dulat wrote. After the passage of the bill, the Abdullahs were detained for nearly seven months. “They (government) wanted him to accept the new reality,” the author commented.
Abdullah Senior has responded angrily. The 84-year-old said it was a “figment of imagination” of Mr Dulat, and accused him of “cheap stunts” to boost the sales of his coming book. Mr Abdullah said he and his son had been put under arrest for several months after the scrapping of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. “We were detained because our stand against the abrogation of special status was well-known,” he said, pointing out the initiative he took to build Gupkaar alliance.
“The claim in the book that the National Conference was planning to pass a resolution on the abrogation of the special status is merely a figment of the imagination of the author who claims to be my friend,” Mr Abdullah said.
“A benchmark of common sense should have been adopted by the author while penning the so-called memoirs. He should have remembered that there was no assembly in 2018,” Mr Abdullah pointed. He also said had the assembly been in session too, he would have never considered passing such a resolution. “The author claims that Abdullah would always listen to his advice, which is yet another example of underestimating me. I am a man of my own mind, and I only decide. I am not anyone’s puppet,” he asserted.
For Mr Dulat, Farooq Abdullah’s house arrest in 2019 was the “saddest story in Kashmir” as the NC chief questioned his detention during a conversation with the former spy chief. “When he spoke to me about the abrogation later, he was forthright, ‘Kar lo agar karna hai (do it if you want to) he said, somewhat bitterly. ‘Par yeh arrest kyu karna tha? (but why arrest us?)’,” he wrote in his book.
Mr Dulat also talks about how Farooq Abdullah is different from his son Omar, who have both served as chief ministers of the erstwhile state and Omar is currently serving as the first chief minister of the Union Territory. Farooq Abdullah, he writes, has always sought to be on the right side of Delhi, but not on Delhi’s terms, unlike Omar Abdullah, who goes out of his way to please Delhi.
“He (Farooq) always looked for a level playing field and, in the end, did it his way, which Delhi could never comprehend. For instance, after his release from detention in March 2020, Delhi expected him to come and meet the Prime Minister. But he took his time on the excuse that he needed cataract surgeries in both his eyes. He came to Delhi only in July 2020.”
“That is the difference between Farooq and Omar. When Omar says he wants a good relationship with Delhi, he goes out of his way to please Delhi. Farooq does what he thinks will go down best with his people,” he wrote. Mr Dulat says Delhi has “almost always” missed the bus with Farooq Abdullah as he narrated a 2014 phone call he got from IB headquarters.
“I was holidaying in Goa when I got a call from IB headquarters in Delhi, ‘Do you have Doctor Sahib’s London telephone number?’ ‘I do,’ I replied. ‘But I hardly have it here on the beach! Baat kya hai? Ab aap phone karna chah rahe ho, but it’s too late now.'(What is the matter? If you want to call him now, it’s too late.) ‘Nahi, nahi, (no, no) we just wanted to enquire about his health.’ ‘Well, even there you’re too late.’ It was another indicator of how tall a leader Doctor Sahib is. It was an indicator, as well, of how, try as Delhi might to dismiss him, it can never ignore Farooq,” Mr Dulat wrote. “He is the face not just of his party but of the Valley in modern India,” the book states.
